Reverse Lens Photography Tutorial

Extreme Macro Imaging

By Taylor Groeneweg/Great Divide Photography


A small house fly. Canon EOS 10D, 1/180 sec, Normal lens: Tamron 28-80mm set at 80mm f16, Reversed Lens: Pentax-A 50mm f2	A flower about the size of a dime. Canon EOS 10D, 1/90 sec, Normal lens: Tamron 28-80mm set at 80mm f22, Reversed Lens: Pentax-A 50mm f2

A tutorial on reverse lens photography. Reverse lens photography is a technique that allows you to achieve incredible magnification by using two regular lenses and a DSLR or SLR.

A Pentax 50mm f2 lens is acting as the reversed lens in this setup. The other lens is an 80-200mm telephoto lens zoomed to 80mm.

A second lens, which is reversed and put in front of the lens on your camera, will magnify a small object beyond the range of either of your lenses individually. This technique takes advantage of the way a lens is designed to focus a large scene onto a small sensor. It also takes advantage of the fact that a lens can focus light in both directions.

Using two prime lenses will give the best results and minimize chromatic aberrations, however, good results can still be obtained from zooms as well. The second reversed lens can either be hand held, taped on, or screwed on with a special adapter ring. The adapter is called a Macro Coupler and will have threads on both sides so that it can be screwed onto the regular lens like a filter and have the reversed lens screw onto it.

A portrait length lens should be used as the regular lens on your camera. This would be in the range of 80mm to 100mm. This lens should be switched into manual focus mode and focused to its shortest distance. Screwing on a filter before attaching the second lens will help to protect your glass as well.

To produce this dark vignette, the normal lens was zoomed to 40mm and a gap was allowed between the normal and reversed lens. Canon 10D, ISO 400, 1/90sec. Normal lens: Tamron 28-80mm set at 40mm f5.6, Reversed Lens: Pentax-A 50mm f2

A shorter focal length lens is used for the second, reversed, piece of glass. When selecting a lens for this technique, try to match up two lenses with similar filter diameters. This will prevent dark fringes from showing up in the corners of your images - unless that is the effect you are after.

Take your second, shorter focal length lens, and place it against the first lens backwards. Focus should be set to infinity to keep the lens compact and allow you to move closer to the object.

Pentax-A 50mm f2.

I use an old 50mm f/2 Pentax for the reversed lens, and it has worked quite well. Its mechanical design allows me to adjust the focus and aperature to be right where I need it without any fuss. Ruggedness is another quality that is valuable when hand holding the lens. The all-metal Pentax has survived several falls with flying colors. Fortunately, it never fell more than a few inches.

You will need to be within a few inches or centimeters of the object you are photographing. Good lighting becomes crucial because the lens tends to block most of the light at such a close distance. Set the aperature on the reversed lens to be wide open so that it will allow as much light in as possible. The aperature on the regular lens can be stopped down for slightly more depth of field.

The eye of the pyramid from the back of a one dollar bill. Canon 10D, ISO 200, 1/60 sec. Normal lens: Tamron 28-80mm zoomed to 80mm and set at f8, Reversed Lens: Pentax-A 50mm f2

Depth of field will be very shallow and setting up a tripod to use with this technique is worth the hassle. If you decided to hand hold the camera, set it to "drive" or "burst" mode to aid in getting the object in focus.

How much magnification will you get? If you use a 100mm lens as the 'normal' lens and a 50mm lens as the reversed lens, you will get a magnification of about twice life size. If you use a 200mm lens as the 'normal' lens and a 50mm lens as the reversed lens, you will get a magnification of about four times life size.

You may need to take several hundred images to capture a winner, but don't give up. Macro photography can open up a whole new world of fascinating details and patterns that you may never have seen before.

The microscopic hairs at the leading of a Great Horned Owl's feather. These special feathers are what help the Owl to fly silently. The hairs of the Owl feather curved up slightly and required a very small F-stop for good sharpness.

Canon 10D, ISO 400, 1/60 sec. Normal lens: Tamron 28-80mm zoomed to 70mm and set at f27. Reversed Lens: Pentax-A 50mm f2

This tiny shell measures just under 8mm across at the widest part. It was photographed on a black velvet background using available window light.

Canon EOS 10D, ISO 200, 1/2 sec. Normal lens:Tamron 28-80mm zoomed to 80mm and set at f27. Reversed lens: Pentax-A 50mm f2.

4x magnification of 12 point Times New Roman font.

Canon EOS 10D, 1/60 sec. Normal lens: 80-200mm set at 200mm f8, Reversed lens: Pentax-A 50mm f2.

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